FC Dallas is just about at the halfway point of 2019 spring training and Saturday afternoon's doubleheader scrimmage was a great time for a progress check.

Game 1 featured the FC Dallas first team against the Bayern Munich U23 side for 70 minutes. Head Coach Luchi Gonzalez continues to push his squad toward 90 minutes and these 70 minutes was the next step in that progress after the 60 minutes they played last weekend.

A 2nd FCD team completed the game against Bayern. Then that group continued into the 2nd half of the second game against San Antonio FC.

A 3rd set of FCD players, mostly from North Texas SC (signed and trialists) with a few Homegrowns and one Academy kid finished the game.

FCD won the first game against Bayern U23s 4-0 but lost the second game to San Antonio FC 3-1.

Again, with two games I'll try and keep this tight.

Let's break it down.

Game 1 Lineup

This is, minus Bryan Acosta, the current FC Dallas starting XI. It's a 4-3-3 in its base. FC Dallas drew it up for us so I'll just use their image.

FCD/FC Dallas

FC Dallas' starting XI against the Bayern Munich U23s. (2-9-19)

Bayern looked to be in 4-5-1 for the most part. It's possible this wasn't the intended formation and they were just getting pinned back by FCD. They did make one change at right back 20 minutes in after Dallas was already up 2-0 that made things a little bit better for them.

Game 1 Goals

1-0 FC Dallas goal - 3rd minute. An angled long ball into the box by Carlos Gruezo finds Dom Badji who has drifted away from his marker, easy header by Badji to the front post for the goal.

4-0 FC Dallas goal - 41st minute. Paxton Pomykal wins a header out in front of Michael Barrios who breaks away from midfield. Barrios cuts into the box inside a defender. The shot is saved, but the ball bounces to Santi Mosquera who scores.

End of Game 1 and Start of Game 2 Lineup

As I mentioned the FCD starters went 70 minutes and then subbed out in mass. Here's the new XI that came in for FCD.

FCD/FC Dallas

FC Dallas' second XI against Bayern Munich's U23s and San Antonio FC. (2-9-19)

FC Dallas first 2019 SuperDraft pick Callum Montgomery got upended late in the game against Bayern Munich and hit the ground hard. North Texas SC trialist Mohamed Sesay came on for him but played right back. FCD's second overall pick John Nelson moved to center back.

This group stayed out in game two against San Antonio FC who played a 4-5-1 formation.

The final version of FC Dallas didn't happen all at once. Instead, it was one change early, a couple more at the half, and a bit later 7 more... FCD ended up with this XI at the end.

Buzz Carrick/3rd Degree

FC Dallas' third set of players who faced off against San Antonio FC. (2-9-19)

A couple of quick notes on these guys. #35 Oscar Romero, #32 Arturo Rodriguez, #34 Brecc Evans, and #31 Ricardo Pepi are signed to North Texas SC. #5 Moises Hernandez is an FCD defender. #23 Thomas Roberts and #29 Bryan Reynolds are FCD Homegrowns you already know. #28 Mohamed Sesay (Richland College, D3 Juco Player of the Year), #39 Lucio Martinez (NTX Rayados), and #36 Hector Montalvo (former FCD Acad. and Pumas U23) are all NTXSC trialists who are clearly doing well to make it into this game.

Last, but not least, is David Rodriguez who subbed in (wearing #38) for Sesay later in the 2nd half. This Rodriguez is the 16-year-old younger brother of the above mentioned Arturo and is the star playmaker for the FCD U17s. A super crafty, highly skilled, lefty attacking mid and game breaker with big potential. Seeing him in this game is really exciting.

Goals

1-0 San Antonio FC goal - 7th minute. SAFC free kick by Rafa Castillo, who is 38 believe it or not, is headed home by Billy Forbes. I'm sure Forbes will relish that goal since he had a trial with FC Dallas prior to last season.

2-1 FC Dallas goal - 52nd minute. Thomas Roberts is involved and a defensive mistake allows the ball to get to Zdenek Ondresek. He's given too much time and the Cobra fires the ball near post. There may have been a slight deflection.

Ema Twumasi is ahead of Francis Atuahene by a large margin. Atuahene didn't play, so I wonder if he's banged up... again. I'll check into that.

Jesus Ferreira has been relegated to wing and hasn't looked great there. Not bad, but not great either. Both he and Twumasi need to get behind the defense more (or at all really) from the 7/11 wings spots like Mosquera and Barrios do.

With Reggie Cannon's return from US camp, Bryan Reynolds went from 1st team to 3rd team. That's either a really bad sign for Reynolds or Coach Gonzalez is still in a "want to see more mode" with John Nelson. Gonzalez knows Reynolds from years in the Academy, so I'm betting it's the latter.

Brandon Servania, after mostly playing as an 8 for former Head Coach Oscar Pareja, has followed up his Concacaf U20 Championship Best XI performance as a 6 by becoming a full time 6 for FC Dallas. He looks really good, showing massive range and skill in the holding spot. He's not taking the starting spot from Gruezo, but he is really exciting to watch.

Seeing Mohamed Sesay again subbing in with some of the FCD MLS players, and wearing #28, should tell us something about how well his trial is going. At this point, I will be shocked if he doesn't sign with North Texas and it won't shock me at all to see him loaned to FCD at some point. We've seen him play right wing and right back.

You may have read my not too-excited review of Zdenek Ondrask (aka Corba) in the last scrimmage report. I will add that today he showed some good post of up play and his best trait looks to be holding off a defender. He tried to play some headers on to breaking wings (Cristian Colman like), but they were called offside. He also made a nice finish for the goal. If in the end he turns out to be a guy who knows where to be, can post up, and can finish if he finds space... that will be pretty good. Not "breaking MLS open" good, but "a nice change of style and pace form Badji when needed" good. If that's what he is, that will be an asset FCD can use. I really need/want to see him play at least one game with the first team this spring.

Dang the 15-year-old Ricardo Pepi is fun to watch. I can't help but get excited. Such range and his positioning is excellent. Looking forward to his development.

Moises Hernandez's versatility and MLS experience are going to keep him on the FCD roster... but just barely. Nelson and Montgomery make Hernandez's long term status problematic.

Speaking of John Nelson. He played right back, left back, and center back today. That versatility should give him a long career and makes him really valuable to FCD. He looks like an early steal out of the draft at the 10th overall pick.

Thomas Roberts again played more like a 10 than an 8 when he was with the later groups.

18-year-old Edwin Cerrillo, still unsigned as a Homegrown, is right now top 4 choice at one of the 8 spots in midfield. Maybe even 3rd.

Pablo Aranguiz isn't having a great spring it seems. He hasn't wowed me in the training I've seen and he played both as a wing and as an 8 with the 2nd group today. Hayes and Pomykal appear to be ahead of him in the queue and Bryan Acosta just got here. In the scrimmage, Aranguiz earned a PK on a nice splitting pass from Ferreria... and promptly fired the PK wide left.

No sign of last year's draft picks Kris Reaves and Mauro Cichero. Nor of this year's late round picks Eduvie Ikoba and Sam Ebstein.

Luchi Gonzalez's Fluid Tactics

This article is really long already so I won't spend too long on this.

Coach Gonzalez has talked a lot this spring about the fluidity of tactics. FCD nominally plays a 4-3-3. I'm going to put three diagrams below this paragraph to show how fluid that shape really is. On the left is the base 4-3-3, the middle image is how the shape compresses down to a 4-1-4-1 when playing a deep block style defense (we saw that some in the scrimmage), and the diagram on the right is the 3-4-3 type shape I mentioned in my scrimmage preview from Friday that FCD uses when building forward with possession.

3rd Degree/Buzz Carrick

Three diagrams showing the fluid nature of coach Luchi Gonzalez's tactics. Left is the base 4-3-3, middle is a defensive block 4-1-4-1, and right is the attacking 3-4-3.

These shifts aren't there all the time, but it's something you can look for in the next game.